Roland SH-1000

The SH-1000, introduced in 1973, was the first instrument produced by
Roland, and probably one of the first compact affordable keyboard
synthesizers in all of Japan. It was designed to complement a home
organ. Above its keyboard is a wooden sheet music stand.
Organ-style colored preset selector tabs are located below the keyboard.
All the extra parameter controls are located to the left of the
keyboard.

The SH-1000 is a monophonic analog synth with a single oscillator
feeding a lowpass filter, an ADSR envelope, and two
LFOs. It features 10 Preset sounds, but they are pretty weak.
Fortunately you can create your own sounds for some really great
mono-synth bass, lead, percussion and FX sounds. Basic square, ramp and pulse-width
waveforms are available from the oscillator and the LFOs have sine, square
and sample+hold. It has a terrific ‘Growl’ and ‘Wow’ effect for a pretty
scary analog sound. It also features white noise, pink noise,
portamento, octave transposition and a Random Note Generator. Although
there is no user memory, unique sounds can still be quickly recreated or
discovered thanks to its simple interface.

It’s a dinosaur! But it’s also a classic piece of Roland history. It
has been used by Vangelis, Human League, Blondie, The Band, and
Jethro Tull. A little later in 1973 the SH-2000 was released
with more Preset sounds (up to 30) but far less flexibility,
controls and features. This may have been because the SH-1000 was a little confusing
to its target demographic at the time. But today’s synthesists will love
the unique sound and nostalgia of Japan’s first compact synthesizer!

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Hi, New poster here :) . Okay I was wandering if anyone knows what kills the attack in the envelope generator in these synths. The attack in mine is dead, the decay and sustain are still doi... | Read more...